Taiwanese Basics to Make Locals Smile

Taiwanese, a dialect generally spoken in rural areas of Taiwan with the older generation, is a quick way to distinguish yourself as a local. I’m a weirdo as I was born in Canada but my Taiwanese is far more fluent than Mandarin since we spoke it at home. For me to converse in Mandarin, I think in Taiwanese and do a mental translation; thus I speak “excruciatingly slow that it’s suicide-inducing”, to quote my lovely sister. (Though, I began thinking in Mandarin by the end of this trip!)

I visit the motherland every 2-3 years to see family, hike and eat incredible (and unbearable amounts of) food. This past trip, my dear friend Bayan tagged along for the first chunk of his inaugural Asia trip and it was also my first time bringing someone (Persian, even!) with me to my ancestral home. I taught Bayan some Mandarin basics but my parents and their peers mainly speak in Taiwanese and switch mid-sentence-or-diatribe to Mandarin (you can imagine my confusion growing up) so we started a Taiwanese survival list on his iPhone. Not many people learn the local tongue before the official language so needless to say, Bayan was a hit and left the elders roaring. My grandma, who's never interacted with a non-Taiwanese human, had her silver tooth glinting after every utterance and responded with much skeptical prodding, "Does he even understand what he's saying?!" "Make him define what he said!" And he would. Even though she doesn't understand a word of English.

TAIWANESE BASICS TO THRIVE AROUND LKK*S

I tried to spell the sounds to how they work in English.

*LKK (older people refer to themselves as the acronym ‘LKK’) stands for Lao Kohk Kohk = slang for Old person (Lao means old and Kohk Kohk is the sound of knocking on a hollow head… this may be my own interpretation)

Have this list handy or partially memorized! Bayan could not load his notes quick enough at one humongous dinner which resulted in him having to cram another piece of chicken into his stomach. Upon seeing his defeat, my mom cried with laughter for ten minutes. So perhaps this guide is moot and the real key to charming the Taiwanese -- or anyone -- is making an effort and embracing the mayhem that ensues. (I guess it helps to be an attractive foreigner too.)